Comments on: Vista really does have driver issues!

By: Tom Raftery

Tom Raftery — Wed, 21 May 2008 09:27:00 +0000

Thanks Steve,

May be worth a post in its own right. I imagine people would find it useful.

I may come back to you for more info if I get to write that post!

By: steve clayton

steve clayton — Wed, 21 May 2008 08:47:41 +0000

Tom

In many cases it happens through Windows Update though it’s always good to periodically do a manual check there.

with the Vaio, they have an updater of their own (I know…I wish there was just one system too!) which does a good job of updating you through a system tray icon. if you’re not running that, it’s worth a check on the Vaio page

the rub of this some OEM’s seem to put their stuff in Windows Update better than others which makes things very simple. When they don’t the onus falls back on the user which is dumb IMHO. The good news though is that the driver quality and availability has dramatically increased since Vista shipped.

for your Vaio, go here
http://support.vaio.sony.co.uk/downloads/updates/updates.asp?site=voe_en_GB_cons&c=0&s=VGN-SZ&m=2382&os=7&osl=1

By: Tom Raftery

Tom Raftery — Wed, 21 May 2008 08:36:36 +0000

Thanks for that Steve.

How do I update the drivers for a given device if they have been released since Vista came out?

Does it happen automatically through Windows Update or do I need to go in and look for them?

By: steve clayton

steve clayton — Wed, 21 May 2008 07:59:40 +0000

I’d say it’s more akin to buying a car without the right pressure in the tyres. since Vista launched literally thousands of drivers have been added to Windows Update and with the speed of product changes it’s becoming unrealistic to ship every conceivable driver in the box.

this isn’t an excuse for the missing drivers at the launch of Vista but I think this problem has been well documented and well acted upon.

By: rataylor

rataylor — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:45:10 +0000

Microsoft is selling Vista without drivers & all the vendors are not upgrading their drivers to Vista. Isn’t this like buying a car without tires

By: DoN

DoN — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 18:15:29 +0000

Download the latest drivers…..it will solve ur problem

By: michaelhill

michaelhill — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 08:25:39 +0000

Lessee…the Hitachi video cam is no longer viable, the replacement SB Audigy SE sound card is basically junk, I am afraid to buy a video card to replace the POS included with the Intel chipset and at times the DSL modem doesn’t sync unless I reset the ethernet card. That’s just off the top of my head. I used to have XP Pro spinning in my hand until I saw this $600 ACER POS speced out as I would for a new machine. Core duo at 3M each and a 19″ widescreen monitor!
I had in my mind - I will have to do it some day…go!
ACER includes so much shitware that impedes my understanding of Vista I can’t believe it. I have contacted them several times and asked for a disc of Vista home premium sans their software and they claim they cannot do so. HEY!!! Didn’t I pay for a license for Vista that allows me to get the updates that now number over 50 at this time?!
I can’t have a clean copy of the software without the proprietary crap?!
WHY?!!

Is it MS alone or is it HP/COMPAQ, ACER, DELL, GATEWAY and others that share the blame? Too much 3rd party crapware makes for an ugly mess that far too many of us stumble upon while we attempt to comprehend the ugly beast.

This beast would fly with 2K PRO. Perhaps I should purchase a new SATA drive, swap it out and install a previous version of windows on it. NAH…that sounds too easy, right?!

15 years ago I had dreams of a PC with no hard drive. Why put a spinning disc inside when memory will do the same. I was an electronics technician at NASA and maintained those old refrigerator sized VAX computers/peripherals and wondered why the technology was stalled. Those things used tape drives and stacked discs. A lot of that can be done with flash memory. How much flash can you stack into a PC tower?

I coulda/shoulda bought a MAC. I know how to use them while employed at JHUAPL - Mac was the preference of a lot of people there

By: Miel

Miel — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 09:46:39 +0000

The Fn- F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 funcition keys to adjust brightness, sound and other things are included in the utilities which you can download from http://support.vaio.sony.co.uk/downloads/updates/updates.asp?site=voe_en_GB_cons&c=0&s=VGN-SZ&m=2381&os=7&osl=1

(might be you need to go look for your own model as I’ve selected the VGN/ SZ3 VWP/X model

Reinstalling the utilities fixed that issue for me. I hope it does it too for you.

By: Fotis Pappas

Fotis Pappas — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 21:13:31 +0000

I have a Vaio with ATI display driver and had the same blue screen problems like most of you and system lockups.

Few seconds before reinstalling windows XP i found this link…
http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool/

Now my vaio works without crashing, and I am still trying to find how to make my brightness/volume keys to work.

Please leave a note if you find something.

By: John

John — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 03:33:39 +0000

Vista is a mess. I am a computer programmer and IT specialist, and I could not get bluetooth devices to work properly. My soundcard doesnâ€™t work properly. I could not get my USB drive to work. And even hardware with driver downloads from the original company did not work (for example an HP 1315 all in one, the installation asked for me to connect the printerâ€“ which after doing the setup program would not recognize that I had connected). Iâ€™ve tried installing anyways by clicking a â€œconnect laterâ€ box and hitting next; however this did not work. HP and Microsoft have both failed me. On the plus side I am switching out 10,000 computers in my office to Linux, and so my pain will be felt a lot more by microsoft in the years to come.

By: Ronald

Ronald — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 03:30:26 +0000

After years of sticking it out with Microsoft, I am finally a die-hard anti-Microsoft consumer. I have stuck with them through even MS-DOS and Windows 3.1. I chose windows mobile over palm. I chose IE over netscape, mozilla, and firefox. I even had an easier time with Windows 2000 than this.

My next PDA will definately be a palm-based OS. I am running ubuntu on my computer, and I have helped install linux on my entire familyâ€™s computers. I recommended that my sister get Apple. For Christmas I was thinking about getting my little cousin an XBOX 360, but I am getting a Nintendo Wii instead. Microsoftâ€™s focus on predatory strategy and getting the hype and wow right but the basics wrong has pushed me over the edge. I urge all of you to tell as many people to abandon Microsoft en masse. Microsoft needs to hear about this.

By: Jimmy

Jimmy — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 07:24:16 +0000

I just bought an sz230 with vista pre-installed and its working fine for the most part. Even with all the drivers updated from sony support, my utilities keys still doesn’t work because the bios is unable to read my systems information. I also find it awkward that my system info reads “DELL”. A bit curious but nothing to be concerned about. It only has 1 gig of ram but i wish to upgrade, and since I am unfamiliar with notebook ram, any suggestions on what I should buy?

By: Anonymous User

Anonymous User — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 09:00:22 +0000

I just bought a Vaio VGN-AR41S… with Vista Home Premium. I am going to have to re-install Vista… or Go back to using XP… cause basically the system is so unreliable… blue screen of death 2 times an hour… I am almost scared to do anything cause it seems like even clicking the start can cause the thing to crash…

By: Vista and the Calculating Time remaining bug - Coding Sanity

Vista and the Calculating Time remaining bug - Coding Sanity — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 05:44:27 +0000

[...] they should upgade existing PC's but only put Vista on new PC's due to the plethora of driver problems experienced by user of older [...]

By: t.c.

t.c. — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 21:23:23 +0000

Drivers, drivers, drivers! I have had to return most of the hardware that I use on a regular basis, as the manufacturers are too lazy to produce drivers, making my system very unstable at times. I have replaced them with ones from better manufacturers that have vista support. The OS itself doesn’t yet feel like a true upgrade to Windows XP. It seems as it is as Windows ME was to Windows 98.

By: Miel

Miel — Fri, 18 May 2007 08:55:47 +0000

Marcio, I run Second Life on the Vaio and so does Tom. Maybe you should just update your drivers…

By: Trying Windows Vista on Parallels « AccMan

Trying Windows Vista on Parallels « AccMan — Thu, 17 May 2007 15:56:45 +0000

[...] Parallels and XP, making sure I deleted all files and folders. For an example on a PC, check out Tom Raftery’s saga with Vista on a Sony Vaio. And Tom’s being paid by [...]

By: Marcio Ehrlich

Marcio Ehrlich — Thu, 17 May 2007 09:41:20 +0000

There is no way Sony Vaio and the Intel board run Second Life.
This is a shame for a brand that claims to be so sophisticated.

By: Paul M. Watson

Paul M. Watson — Tue, 08 May 2007 08:02:21 +0000

Bianca, sorry for your trouble but 1GB is a workable minimum.

It should work with what they sell it on but there you go, thats computers for you

By: Bianca

Bianca — Tue, 08 May 2007 06:29:01 +0000

I’m not sure if this is the right place to air this grievance - maybe someone can tell me if I’m being unreasonable - but I just bought a Sony Vaio VGN-C21 with 512MB, it came with Vista Basic, and it’s incredibly slow, frustrating and often unusable. All I’m running is Office, Mozilla, Flickr Uploader and pretty much just using it for word processing and internet. It sometimes freezes and ‘thinks’ for several minutes, during which i can’t do anything. It’s very slow to respond even to switching between program windows or tabs in Mozilla. Sony helpline guy said I should really be running it with at least 1GB - but they sold it to me with 512MB so in my book, it should bloody well work with 512MB! Angry! Any suggestions?